Sebastian Anthony

Sebastian was ExtremeTech's senior editor from 2011 through the end of 2014. He wrote about everything from brain implants to the latest computer chips, from society's servitude to electricity to the impending arrival of the technological singularity.

Yesterday evening, North Korea was unceremoniously knocked off the internet by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This comes shortly after the US government promised a ‘proportional response’ to the Sony Pictures hack, which the FBI believes was carried out by North Korea. While it would be rather funny if the US government was responsible for taking North Korea off the internet, it’s more likely to be the actions of some disgruntled hacktivists such as Anonymous or Lizard Squad.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to look out the window of a spacecraft that’s returning to Earth? Well, wonder no more: NASA has released some video footage captured out of the windows of the Orion capsule as it returned to Earth during its test flight a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it’s sensational.

Way back in the summer of 2013, Elon Musk showed off a new piece of tech that could swap the battery of a Tesla Model S in 90 seconds. In one simple move, these battery swap machines made electric cars almost as convenient as their petrol- and diesel-powered brethren. The original plan was to roll out the tech to Supercharger stations in the second half of 2013, but they never emerged. Now, a single Supercharger station in Harris Ranch California has been equipped with the battery swap tech, and Tesla has started inviting some Model S owners to come try it out.

After securing both the Xbox One and PS4, it would appear that an AMD SoC will also be powering Nintendo’s next console. Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that Nintendo is working on a possible new gaming system, and AMD has confirmed that it’s got another major design win. Are they one and the same thing? Probably.

North Korea was indeed responsible for the massive hack on Sony Pictures, according to officials from within the US government. The problem is, there is very little evidence that North Korea was actually behind the attack — which makes me wonder, a) Why is the US government fingering North Korea? and b) If it wasn’t North Korea, who hacked Sony Pictures?

If you’re still lamenting the loss of The Pirate Bay, which was shut down last week by Swedish police, you now have an intriguing new option: If you have some web hosting, a small amount of tech savvy, and you’re located in a country where it’s legal, you can now easily host your own Pirate Bay.

Way back in the summer of 2013, SpaceX’s Elon Musk proposed a new transportation system that was equal parts awesome and insane: The Hyperloop. Unfortunately, that was the extent of Musk’s involvement: He gave us his plans in the form of a 57-page white paper, and then told the world to go ahead and build it. Now, a group of 100-odd engineers have banded together to try and actually create a Hyperloop — and they seem to be making pretty solid progress.

For the past five years, Microsoft has been forced to offer first-time Windows users in Europe a choice of web browser. This was a result of an EU ruling in 2009, which found that Microsoft had been unfairly abusing its operating system monopoly to push Internet Explorer into the hands of millions of unwitting, unfortunate users. Now, however, Microsoft is once again free to make Internet Explorer the default web browser in Windows.

On Friday, December 19, SpaceX will attempt one of the most exciting maneuvers in the entire history of space travel: The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will try to land on a giant platform in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Usually, the first stage just falls into the ocean, never to be used again; in this case, if the soft landing is successful, the rocket can be reused, massively cutting the costs of space launches.

Steam, one of the sole bastions of sanity when it comes to digital games distribution, has enabled region locking on games. This means if you buy a game in one territory, you can no longer use it in another territory — much like DVD region locking (but more effective, as Steam’s region locking hasn’t been cracked). While this might look like oppressive behavior by Valve, there’s actually a very good reason behind the locks: Unstable currencies, like the Russian ruble, caused by the crashing price of crude oil. Or maybe Valve (and publishers) are just sick of people buying games cheaply in other territories, then redeeming them in their (more expensive) home countries.

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